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Hello everyone, I just finished an environment in the new unreal engine for my senior project in college. Its all custom meshes and only a little bsp. I know its not good gameplay wise, but I was focusing on the visual aspect of the environment. This is the first time I have worked with importing stuff into a game environment. My semester is almost over so I don't think I'll add a whole bunch more to it but I would still be glad to hear your comments.

Before I get to the pictures, I would like to thank Hourences for his excellent tutorials and capone_adam for some good feedback when I started this project.

I think adding more dirt to the bottom of walls and to foutain base as well would be cool. Otherwise buildings and a fountain contrast too much with ground paves. Also ur pavement has a visible pattern. U could just make ur texture larger to have less repetions and also more variations in the texture.

Anyways, imo looks good anyways as for college project :thumbsup:

Gaboon

12 December 2007, 06:45 PM

Good start. I'd say waaaaay more dirt. Everything looks brand new. Should be water grome on the walls and pillars, bird poop on the ground, etc. Check out Assasins Creed to set a goal level. Get a good reference of an old park or courtyard from somewhere in europe. Keep it up.

PredatorGSR

12 December 2007, 08:06 PM

I second what the others said. The one other thing I noticed was the curly thing above the doorway should be a normal map, not a model. If you did it with a normal map not only would it slightly reduce the poly count, but it would also allow you to make it perfectly smooth instead of having the segmeted look of a low poly model.

Looking good though.

Swizzle

12 December 2007, 08:46 PM

While I too think it needs more dirt, one thing that bugged me is that everything looks flat. There doesn't seem to be a lot of texture or grit anywhere because you aren't really letting your normal maps do their job. Get some normal mapped detail in thereómake it pop!

ElecHeadMatt

12 December 2007, 09:41 PM

Yeah same as Swizzle. The only indication I'm seeing that you're using UE3 here is the lighting. Get some serious surface detail in there with the normal and parallax maps, and dirty everything up.

Blot12345

12 December 2007, 05:33 AM

Thank you everyone for the replies. I totally agree about dirtying it up more. I agree with all the other stuff as well, however I don't think I'll add it to this map. I think I am going to start a new map that actually has some good game play to as well. I figure if I'm going to put a bunch of time into it, it should at least be playable.

About the normal maps:

What would be the best way to create a normal map for the brick walls for instance? Would I model the wall brick by brick and then bake a normal map. Or should I paint a real nice map to pump into CrazyBump and get a normal map that way?

I guess my real problem is that I can't get the normal maps to really pop. Even when I model a high poly version and bake it to a normal map it just gives a little bump to the low poly version.

Thanks again for all replies.
~Alex

Matroskin

12 December 2007, 01:47 PM

better do it in CrazyBump, cause that way it is faster and u can adjust bump depth there.

Slybones

12 December 2007, 08:49 PM

Blot, are you using a spec map along with the normal map? The nm really won't show up much without a good spec map.

Also, a baked AO map into the diffuse will do wonders in faking depth.

Blot12345

12 December 2007, 01:27 AM

I do have a baked AO, but is AO map was baked from the low poly without the normal map. Whenever I tried to add the normal map and bake it froze up.

Franj

12 December 2007, 09:13 AM

I think you need to push far more the polycount and the texture sizes. UT3 can hold more 500.000 polys per patch and suddently reach the 1.000.000, textures needs a lot more work, a good inspirational work for you should be taking a look at GOW or UT3. Trying to match as close as possible.

Good work!
cheers!

capone_adam

01 January 2008, 12:27 PM

Hi Blot,

Sorry about delayed responce. For some reason I'll leave cgtalk and not come back till months later...

Well done on finishing it.

Looks like it was quite restricted? As regards to the assignment. I had the same with my course where we were making art that seemed 'last gen'. Not sure if its cost related to the course or if it really is just because they are behind the times.

Don't get me wrong, it looks good as far as uni assignments go but as a pro I'll point out my problems with it so you have something to think about in the future...

1. Subtle colour variations. For example on your yellow walls I can only see tones of yellow, can't see anything else such as orange/green/blue. This is one reason it looks flat.

2. The yellow 'gold' parts don't look metalic. I'm guessing you were not allowed to use spec maps?

3. Normal maps not strong enough. You can use crazy bump but even with the standard nvidia filter you could improve it on what it is now. Also do you know what i mean when I say 4x4 and 9x9?

4. Decals on the floor would help break it up. If your using unreal3 you could make a mask map.

5. Not noticing much if any edgewear here? The only edges I see are white straight lines which isn't very natural.

6. Also is it me or on some parts such as the floor texture you have added a emboss effect or something like that and then made the light source within that effect directional instead of uniform. So the highlight just hits one side?

7. Yup the dirt/stainage. Especially in inner edges/coners etc.

Let me know if you don't understand any of those crits. Again, congrats on getting this far. Would be cool if you could go back and mage the improvements even if its outside your assignment where you have less limitations. Saying that, I know more than anyone how at the end of these assignments you're just sick to death of the scene and want to start something new. Maybe create a new environment and take on board the crits you recieved on this piece. If you do,try making it 1/4 of the size so you have less mapping etc (boring work) to do and something that really allows you to concentrate on the texturing.

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